


Xane

by WoofTheWaffle



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Death, Lich!Taako, M/M, Other, Sort Of, bad scarf knitting, najsigts taz swap contest, villainswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 07:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13922607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WoofTheWaffle/pseuds/WoofTheWaffle
Summary: Tazswap contest entry for Najsigt's tazswap contest.Lydia's trapped in the Xane staff, she does her best to help Edward out





	Xane

**Author's Note:**

> a;ldslkjd wow my first taz fanfic
> 
> credit to my editor and good friend for coming up with the name of the limelight gauntlet and how lydia carved her name into the wall <3 i appreciate the help with that!
> 
> my tumblr is icyzans.tumblr.com

* * *

When Lydia left, she didn’t mean to be gone for very long. She left a note on the kitchen table that said only ‘Back soon,’ offering no clues to her whereabouts or what she was up to. An eventual broken promise.

 

She had tracked down the Limelight Gauntlet, and was lying down on a grassy hill, staring up at the clouds as a furious battle raged on in the valley below. Knowing it was only a matter of time before the battle was over, she sat up. Anxiously, she watched he battle as it reached its conclusion as a plume of smoke and light from the Limelight Gauntlet consumed the last living combatants, leaving a perfect circle of glass, much like a dance floor, in the ground.

 

Lydia got up with a sigh and trekked carefully down the hill to retrieve her creation, swearing to herself that this would be the last time it would ever be used.

 

Several days later, she walked through the twisting corridors of Wave Echo Cave, accompanied by Cyrus Rockseeker, chief of security of the mine, which laid dormant due to the constant attacks from neighboring marauders.

 

She had heard of a vault deep within the cave, and contacted Cyrus to help her hide the Gauntlet away where it could be pursued, but never obtained.

 

She had underestimated the thrall of the Gauntlet and what Cyrus would do to obtain it. As the door to the vault slowly swung open, the feeling of the cold steel of a dagger slashed into her back, and two deft hands stole the Gauntlet from out of her hands.

 

Recovering quickly, she knocked Cyrus and the Gauntlet into the vault with a powerful thunderwave and closed the door. But the deed was done, and Lydia quickly realized the gravity of her wound. Cyrus’s blade had been coated in silver point poison.

 

Lydia collapsed, slumped against the wall with her Xane Staff at her side. She regretted it; if this truly was the last cycle, she had already burned her corporeal form. But that would be the cost of undoing the damage done to this world.

 

When her lich form left her body, the true cost of what she’d done was revealed. Her Xane Staff absorbed the power of defeated magic users, and Lydia’s lich form was pure arcane power. The Xane Staff immediately responded to her ghostly power, the gem glowing brightly as she was swallowed. As Lydia’s senses returned to her, she found herself in a simple room with black curtains as walls. She wasn’t afraid— she didn't know _how_ to be. She spent years in this place, fighting for consciousness.

 

Eventually, her faculties returned to her one by one. She was able to see, feel, and hear, and later extend those senses to the outside world.

 

She couldn't find an escape from the inside of the Xane Staff, and with a patience she had no choice but to learn, she waited.

* * *

 

“Oh June, honey, no.” Lydia muttered to herself.

 

The girl sheriff had tried to knit Edward a scarf. It was a little lopsided and bunchy in places, just a mess in general.

  
So when Edward tried to cast prestidigitation on the scarf, she made it cast a powerful scorching ray instead, and destroyed the scarf that June had created. Oh, fuck, she didn’t mean to make it _that_ powerful. She winced.

 

“You could’ve said that you didn’t like it… I understand.” June said softly.

 

“N-no! I didn’t—” Edward tried to say before Lydia cut him off by pointing the Xane Staff towards the closest wall.

 

She cast an illusion spell to carve a bright neon L made of light into the wall, followed by a Y, D, I, A.

 

She let her control of the staff go and immediately felt exhausted, letting Edward deal with the rest. She had saved up all of her energy for that spell, and all she hoped is that he had gotten her message.

* * *

 

“Edward, you aren’t harboring a dark spirit, are you? I felt the same thing I felt at Kravitz’s lab. Its dead and powerful and extremely close. Are you sure you aren’t a vessel?” Lucas, the grim fucking reaper _,_ asked as his face evaporated into a skull.

 

Lydia panicked, probably overreacting, as she raised the Xane Staff and pointed it at Lucas’s back. She began to charge scorching ray.  


But before she could cast the spell, Edward reacted quickly and pointed the staff upward, sending the blast into the sky.

 

“What was that?” She heard Lucas ask, a slight panic in his voice.

 

“The Xane Staff’s trying to kill you, it’s not me!”

 

Edward passed her over to Lucas, his cold hands extremely different from Edward’s familiar ones. She tensed up, hoping that Lucas wouldn’t sense her in there with his spooky powers.

 

“This isn’t, like, a cursed item. Maybe you should get your staff checked out for curses?” She heard Lucas say, and relaxed a little. She tuned out from the rest of the conversation as soon as she was given back to Edward.

 

She had almost ruined Edward’s date with the fucking grim reaper. Luckily, Edward’s quick thinking had prevented her from blasting his new boyfriend.

* * *

 

Lydia was in a panic. Wonderland was absolute hell. She felt all of Edward’s pain, and she was furious that she couldn’t do a thing.

 

She tore at the cream colored walls of her prison, picked up the chair at the table and threw it at the wall repeatedly. Eventually, the chair broke, and all she had left to do was pace anxiously while trying to think of another way out. She couldn’t find any relief.

 

Lydia heard a fight outside. Another lich fell into the chamber and quickly scrambled to his knees.

 

“Who are you? What _is_ this place?” Taako asked in a panic, looking around.

 

“Are you the one who’s been hurting my brother out there?” Lydia asked, full of anger.

 

“Am I- Where are we?”

 

She didn’t answer him and gritted her teeth, seething with anger.

 

“I’m going to fucking kill you now,” She said, before proceeding to pummel him with both her fists and all the spells she could muster.

* * *

 

He had remembered her now, she heard the pain in his voice as he threatened Brian and gave up.

 

He knew where she was now, she felt his grasp on the staff tighten as Sloane reassured him.

 

“You found her! That’s how strong your connection is to Lydia. You’re still working together! And she wouldn’t want you to give up!” Sloane said.

 

“Damn right, I don’t!” Lydia yelled, even though no one could hear her.

 

Later, a furious battle against the Hunger happening outside, she is once again filled with anxiety.

 

Edward was thrown, June picked up the staff, and with his permission she used it. Lydia took over and cast a much more powerful scorching ray.

 

“Sir, t-that wasn’t me! I-I didn’t cast that! I’m not powerful enough to cast that!” June stuttered.

 

“I know.” Edward said.

 

“No, you don’t- You don’t understand- I’m not powerful enough to cast that spell!” June said with a hint of panic in her voice as she threw the staff back to Edward.

 

Edward caught the staff, and for a long moment, he didn’t do anything.

 

“C’mon, bro…” Lydia muttered. If she had a heart in this form, it would have been beating fast.

 

Then, finally, he broke the staff over his knee.

 

And with an explosion, she was free, destroying the Hunger around her with bright neon lights, smoke, and smaller explosions but leaving her friends and their friends in the room completely unharmed.

 

She floated in the middle of the room, phantasmal and resplendent. Her hands were still glowing with neon lights and smoke as she turned towards Edward,

  
“You’re dating the _grim reaper_!?”


End file.
